Vincent Tapia Accused Of Fatally Shooting Driver After Accident
DENVER (CBS4) -- Police arrested 19-year-old Vincent Tapia late Friday night after a shooting incident that killed a man. A Denver Police Department sergeant encountered Tapia "sprinting....about five blocks away from the scene and within minutes of the 911 call," as stated in the arrest affidavit obtained Monday by CBS4.
Officers took Tapia in custody, searched him and found a handgun. It is believed to be the weapon Tapia used to kill the man moments earlier, and the same gun that two witnesses say the victim himself handed to Tapia earlier in the evening.
Those two witnesses -- females in the back seat of a vehicle which the victim was driving and Tapia was the front seat passenger -- both told DPD investigators that the driver passed a handgun to Tapia while the group was driving to a nightclub, according to the affidavit. Both females said the two men were drinking tequila and rolling marijuana cigarettes.
They said the night changed for the worse when the driver rear-ended another car while driving on Federal Boulevard. The driver fled the crash. The two men, according to the females' statements in the affidavit, began arguing about the incident.
The driver pulled the car over at 16th Avenue and Irving Street, about three blocks west of Mile High Stadium. The females said the two men both exited the vehicle in order to fight.
Tapia, known only to the females as 'Vinny,' pulled out the revolver handgun and shot the driver twice. Then, they said, he ran.
The driver, as yet unidentified by the Denver Medical Examiner's Office, was pronounced dead at the hospital at 11:58 p.m., 31 minutes after police were notified of the shooting.
Investigators noted that no bullet casings were found at the shooting scene.
Details of Tapia's interview at police headquarters were not made available in the affidavit. He made his first court appearance later Saturday morning and was advised of the single arrest charge against him: 1st Degree Murder.
